At the 4 hour point I left it as a single loaf and placed it in the banneton and straight into the fridge for 12 hours. It was then left at room temperature for 45 min while the oven and stone heated up. Baked for 45 min at 220C .

Considering the amount of time the sponge was working and the 12 hours in the fridge, there is only a mild sour taste, very pleasant indeed. The crumb is light and open and the crust is a nice chew, yum.

I have some pictures that I would love to insert but the present method is not suitable for direct insertion. [b](ATT Moderator)[/b]

I have been trying a different schedule for using the fridge with sourdough that makes it extremely easy to bake on working days.

Morning 1 before work - mix dough (3 quick kneads over 30 mins)
Put in fridge during day
In evening - shape. put back in fridge
Morning 2
In morning - turn on oven immediately on waking
When oven hot get dough out of fridge, slash and put in oven
(the cold dough will not have risen at all and will look very unpromising)
The loaf should rise up like magic, and the grignes open up.
Leave loaf to cool and wife and children to consume while go to work

The great advantage of this method is that it requires very little time (though a little advance preparation) to have a morning sourdough loaf. The flavour of the crumb in particular is great

The disadvantages are that the texture is not as good as if the loaf has all the turns in the bulk fermentation stage, and that you don't get to eat it fresh. (however there is no way to get around that on mornings that I go to work at normal time unless I get up at 4am... I'm not that crazy about fresh bread!)

To insert photos

1. Upload the photo into the gallery (you have done this already)
2. Open the photo in the library
3. Right click on the photo (or press ctrl and click if you are an enlightened Mac user) - select 'open image in new window' or something like that
4. Your photo will open in a new window without a frame around it. Copy the url from the address line in the browser. It should end in .jpg
5. Open your post in the forum
6. type "[img]" then paste in the photos url then type "[/img]"
7. Press 'preview' to make sure it has worked

Thanks for your help Dom, you may notice that my loaf has 3 different gringes, I was experimenting with depth of slash. Wife and I had a taste this morning and had a pig out at lunch time.

I'm very lucky as far as baking is concerned, I'm retired and am getting into something that I have only dabbled with over the past few years.

Friday is shopping day so no baking, but on Saturday I am trying something a bit radical, a 1KG all white loaf at 60% hydration but the sponge is 47% of total weight, and the sponge is at 166% hydration. Supposed to come out like an Italian Pagnotta.